Run-DMSteve

  • Roll over, Beethoven, and take Chuck Berry with you

    From approximately 1976 until 1979, disco was the law of the land. Many people were unhappy under disco’s thumpa-thumpa-thumpa rule, and a rebellion broke out on July 12, 1979 in Comiskey Park, Chicago. The White Sox, who were not enjoying a victorious season, had tried to lure paying customers into…

  • Hardest working woman in showbiz

    I haven’t listened to Diana Ross for years. With so few audio reminders to fluff my memories and make them smell fresh, they thinned out, and I somehow developed the idea that her voice was too refined, that she made me feel as if I were using the wrong spoon…

  • Soul Sister No. 1

    Here’s what I wrote about Aretha Franklin when I started this project. (If you’ve forgotten, if you weren’t paying attention, or if you have actual significant other things to do, I’m listening to all the black music of the 1970s.) So anyway: “With Aretha Franklin, it’s always 1967, I Never…

  • The thrill really is gone

    This has got to stop. Now B.B. King is dead? Every day I have the blues! I hope that when I’m 88, I’m still writing, the way King was still playing. I also hope that someday I’ll be 88. The New York Times has an excellent summary of the man’s…

  • Auf Wiedersehen, Ben E. King

    Loyal Reader Corncobb has prompted this post, and rightfully so. It’s odd that two men who gave us two of the iconic songs of the 1960s, Percy Sledge and Ben E. King, died within two weeks of each other in April. Sledge, who was 74, was best known for “When…